Many business transactions involve the exchange of information between end-users and trading partners. End-users typically rely on manual processes, including faxing and phone calling, to submit transaction requests to their trading partners. Where electronic transactions are conducted between end-users and trading partners, they are typically asynchronous with significant latency.
For example, consider a transaction submitted by an end-user to a trading partner. Typically, the trading partner first batches similar transactions, and then processes them. If more information is needed from the end-user, the trading partner sends a request for information. The end-user may batch these requests before responding to them. This back and forth transmission of batched requests for information, responses, and attempts to re-process the transaction may occur multiple times, over a span of days or potentially weeks, before all the required information can be compiled to process the transaction. This inefficient process is both time and labor intensive, and ultimately adds to the cost of doing business between the end-user and the trading partner.
The advent of the Internet and its increasing use in business has launched many business-to-business e-commerce companies. Their solutions attempt to force a common data model and data presentation format that trading partners must accept, or attempt to change through the e-commerce company's standards committee. Often these solutions are designed only for one trading partner. Thus, an end-user uses different applications from multiple sources to communicate with the many trading partners with which they conduct business. Disparate systems increase the learning curve for end-users and are disruptive to the end-users' workflow.